Elon Musk's Political Meme Coin Experiment: The 294-Day Life-and-Death Chronicle of the DOGE Department

Dogecoin fans all know that Musk has always been DOGE’s number one hype man. But what you may not know is that he literally brought this meme coin’s name into the White House—and even gave it a chainsaw.

And the result? This government department called DOGE only lasted 294 days from launch to shutdown—shorter than the lifespan of many meme coin projects.

A Meme Experiment in Politics

On January 20 last year, the day Trump was sworn in, he signed an executive order to establish the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency.” The English abbreviation? That’s right—DOGE.

How wild was this move: the official website used a Shiba Inu as its logo, Musk tweeted holding a chainsaw, with the caption “for fighting bureaucracy.” The whole vibe felt nothing like a government agency and more like a crypto project running community marketing.

Honestly, when I saw this news back then, I thought it was absurd. Traditional politics values seriousness and authority, but these guys just brought over the whole set of internet meme culture. You call it a government department? I’d rather call it “Washington’s first political meme coin.”

Silicon Valley Style Invades Washington

It gets even crazier. Musk recruited a team of 50 young people in their twenties—these “rookies” showed up at federal agencies in hoodies and jeans, nothing like typical civil servants.

Their work style was also very web3: living off Red Bull, working overtime every day, and in three weeks they’d placed people in major federal agencies. They used AI tools to scan government spending, and when they found empty office buildings, they canceled leases, saving $150 million in one go.

This “move fast and break things” Silicon Valley spirit was a total outlier in Washington. The DOGE team required federal employees to submit weekly reports—no report, automatic resignation; no show, administrative leave. Can you imagine traditional government agencies operating like this?

But here’s the problem—how long could this aggressive approach last?

The Collapse of the Narrative

At first, Musk boasted he’d cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, but after half a year, only about $160 billion was actually cut—not even a fifth of the target.

Democrats did the math and went even further: they claimed DOGE “wasted” over $21 billion in those six months. Department of Energy loan programs were frozen, costing the government $263 million in interest; USAID stalled, leading to $110 million worth of food and medicine rotting in warehouses.

Attorneys general from 14 states directly sued Musk and Trump, calling it unconstitutional. All told, DOGE faced nearly 20 lawsuits, with allegations including privacy violations and illegal access to sensitive data.

By this May, Musk announced his resignation, and even publicly fell out with Trump over a bill. By summer, DOGE headquarters stood empty—even the security posts were gone.

This month, Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Cooper publicly admitted for the first time: DOGE no longer exists, and its functions have been absorbed.

Lessons from the Political Meme Coin

Florida Governor DeSantis posted on X: “DOGE fought the Swamp, and the Swamp won.”

It sounds harsh, but it’s true.

The entire DOGE experiment is actually a lot like common stories in the crypto world: start with an eye-catching symbol (Dogecoin) to generate buzz, use an aggressive narrative to attract attention (“cut $2 trillion!”), then move fast and break the rules (Silicon Valley management style).

But in the end? When the hype fades, you realize that no matter how great the narrative, it has to deliver in reality. Projects that don’t generate real value—no matter how fancy the packaging—are doomed to be abandoned by the market.

What’s interesting, though, is that even though DOGE as a department is gone, some of its members are now shaking things up in other government roles. Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia is now running the National Design Studio, and Zachary Terrell became CTO of the Department of Health.

In a way, this experiment wasn’t a total failure. At the very least, it proved one thing: the fusion of crypto culture and traditional politics has already begun, and it’s irreversible.

In the future, we’ll likely see more political institutions with a “crypto-native” label. The key is figuring out how to combine the spirit of innovation with stable governance—attracting attention with symbols while truly solving problems.

After all, if you’ve been in crypto long enough, you know: memes can generate hype, but the ones that survive are always the projects with real tech and real value creation. Politics is no different.